The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1887-03-23
Preaching Commonplace Truth.

A prominent minister has lately
published his conviction that an ele-
ment of weakness in his ministry has
been the shrinking from Saying, and
saving again, things that are common
and even commonplace" We believe
the point is we'll taken. Without
doubt, many preachers are worried and
hampered in precisely this way. A
man sets out to make q sermon, tor
mented with the idea that he must be
original, and that whatever he says, he
must say something that nobody has
said before; or, ut the very least, must
find way of saying something that
has never before been found. AS re-
suit he works uneasily and often inef-
fectively. There is danger. too, of his
growing morbidly self-conscious, and
caring more for the impression made
by himself than for that made by the
truth on his hearers.
This snare is to be avoided, not by
lapsing lazily into the careless repiti-
ton of platitudes, but by remembering
that peoples lives are made up of COM
mon things, and that the truth suited
to their needs is that which touches
common things in a real and earnest
way. The fault has often been found
with Longfellow's poetry that it is
mostly about everyday affairs. Mr..
Howell says truly that such a criticism
is the highest praise, for it means that
Longfellow has given us "the poetry
of general human life" And the fin
est tribute to Wordsworth that we re-
member is the saying of Mr.. Lowell
that his best poetry is part of the air
we breathe"
Bringing the truth to bear upon fa-
miliar experiences is what has made
the popularity and success Of many
preachers who are not afraid to do it.
Mr.. Moody once illustrated the benefit
of trying different ways of reading the
Bible by his wife's experiments in
cooking tomatoes till at last he found a
style that he liked. 1t was q homely
comparison for great audience in the
West End of London, but after all,
not homlier than that of the kingdom
of heaven to the yeast that q woman
puts into her dough. Mr.. Spurgeon is
another illustrious example of the
freshness and power of commonplace
truth spoken out of warm heart ana
loving sympathy with human needs:
OH Is a COulHlollpltCC IstSl' TN
misery it brings is an everyday matter.
The doom it threatens is an affair OF
universal concern. The temptations
that beset men and women and chill
dren are familiar, humdrum, very or
dinary prose, not poetry or romance.
And when we look in the gospel that
tells of salvation from sin and help in
temptation, we find that its scenes and
sayings are all linked with everyday
life, the workshop and the farm and
the fishing-boat, the household and
the market-place. It's good news is OF
q Saviour who lived and died not only
for men, but with them, and to whom
the common people listened gladly be-
cause he spoke of common things, and
made the highest truth touch vitality
the most matter-of-fact duties and tri-
ais and cares. The Christian preacher
is privileged to declare just such a
commonplace gospel, and the fact of
its being so is the very thing to keep
his heart afire and his hope alive, and
to preserve him from growing tired or
tiresome in preaching it.